


Part of Your World

by flyingonthefriendshipship



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Fairy Tales, Little Mermaid AU, M/M, Tangled AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingonthefriendshipship/pseuds/flyingonthefriendshipship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is the prince of the World Underneath. John is a soldier from Up Above. They were never supposed to have met. But they did, and they liked each other. A lot. Mycroft needs Sherlock back down below, so he hires Jim Moriarty to tear them apart. </p><p>Started out as a Little Mermaid/Tangled AU, and ended up something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jamanddogtags](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jamanddogtags).



> Written for the johnlockchallenges gift exchange over on tumblr as a gift for jamanddogtags. The prompt was "Fairytale." 
> 
> I was literally so, so excited to get this prompt. But then real life came and shoved me flat onto my back and I applied to five hundred colleges, so this is currently a WIP. It'll probably end up pretty long. 
> 
> Started out as a Little Mermaid AU, with hints of Tangled, but somehow kind of got out of hand. Hope ya'll enjoy it, and jamanddogtags, hope you like it!

King Mycroft Holmes sat at his throne, his husband sitting by his side, for all intents and purposes, perfectly content with the world. He watched the ongoing festivities taking place and smiled. Everything was going very well. The singer that he had chosen for this specific occasion was very good -- Irene Adler, that was her name -- and he found that he was actually enjoying himself, which was really something.

Mycroft was at a wedding, one that he had planned himself, and he was ready to see it out to the end. The process had been tedious and terribly difficult, and he really would rather not go to such lengths for anything, but he knew that it would be worth it, in the end.

As the king of the World Underneath, Mycroft ruled the underground just as King Triton ruled the seas. The people that lived down here were his responsibility, and they had been the responsibility of the Holmes family for generations.

The people who lived Up Above, well. They could deal with themselves.

Because the Holmeses were royalty, they had specific roles that they had to play, certain things that they had to accomplish. One of these things was marriage, and the youngest of the Holmes boys, Sherlock, was _finally_ getting married.

Mycroft had arranged all of it, of course. Trying to find a nice, pleasant young woman who would marry Sherlock was no picnic. His brother was...difficult. It took him years of searching, and when he finally found a girl, he swooped her up quickly and made her an offer. The young woman, one Molly Hooper, had accepted, gleefully, which was surprising. Mycroft was ecstatic. Molly would be a perfect wife, a perfect princess, and later, a perfect queen. She and Sherlock would look picture perfect together.

But now it was the wedding, and Irene was just finishing up her song, and there was Molly, in her beautiful dress, looking radiant and happy, and it took Mycroft a moment to realize that _Sherlock wasn’t there_.

What a bother.

“ _SHERLOCK!_ ” Mycroft shouted, and all the festivities stopped, and Molly looked up with a shocked expression on her face and Mycroft did his best not to look absolutely mad because he was, he really, really was, and it wasn’t the best example that a king could give to his people, was it?

“He’s not here, your majesty,” Irene said, sauntering up to the microphone again, where she had just been.

“Obviously,” Mycroft replied. “Where is he, then?”

The side of Irene’s lip quirked up, and she leaned back into the microphone, saying, “He’s in his little treasure trove again.”

Mycroft gave an irritated huff and said, “I’ll go find him,” giving his husband a sideways glance as if to say _how incredibly tiresome_ , and sweeping down off of his throne and purposefully _not_ stomping out in a tizzy like he wanted to. That’s what _Sherlock_ would do, and he would never stoop to that.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock sat in his treasure trove, in a worn-out chair that he had somehow retrieved from Up Above, peering closely at his most recent discovery. It was a color photo, the colors muted and the photo dirty and gritty, and the frame that it was in had dirt caked into its grooves.

The photo featured a man, not tall, and not skinny, but not too short and not fat at all -- more strong than anything. He wasn’t smiling -- instead, he had a serious expression on his face. He was in uniform -- the uniform of an archer, Sherlock noted -- and he was standing stick-straight, just as a soldier should.

Sherlock had never been more fascinated with anything in his life.

He ran his fingers over the gritty frame, over the photo itself, over the face of the man in the photo, and he wondered what this man was like, if he was still alive, if he would want to be Sherlock’s friend (because God knew that Sherlock needed friends). It was lonely down below. Sherlock didn’t like anybody. Everyone was stupid and mean and he hated the World Underneath with a fiery, burning passion, even if he was the prince, even if he was supposed to love it there. He hated it.

He felt trapped. The only times that he felt happy, that he felt really, truly happy, was when he made his journeys to the borderlines between the World Underneath and Up Above, when he picked up trinkets and doodads that people had left behind or discarded and that had been blown away by the wind to where no one ever went, except for him. But he never felt free, because he knew that he would just have to come back down, down to where the earth seemed to swallow everything up and where candlelight and fluorescents could never be any substitutes for sunlight.

Sherlock looked at the picture of his soldier, trying to imagine a world where they were both Up Above and Sherlock wasn’t royalty and where they could be friends. He longed for it. He longed for it so badly that it hurt.

He continued to stare at the photo until he heard the loud pounding of footsteps nearing his trove. “What are you doing here, Mycroft?” he asked, pitching his voice louder so the other man could hear, not looking away from the photo at all.

“You know perfectly well why I’m here.” Mycroft had reached the entrance of the trove, and was now standing in the doorway. “The real question is: What are _you_ doing _here_?”

“Irene didn’t hold your attention for long enough, I take it?” Sherlock asked. When Mycroft didn’t answer, he rolled his eyes and said, “I’ve found something, something new.” He finally looked away from the photo to look his brother in the eye. “Something from Up Above.”

“ _Sherlock_! How many times have I told you to never go Up Above?” Mycroft was now peering at Sherlock’s collection of things, mostly little trinkets and knick knacks that he had found while wandering away from their safe haven. “What is this?” he asked, peering at something that appeared to be a piece of metal, divided into three points at one end and a smooth handle-like single piece at the other.

“Come on, Mycroft. Even you’re not that stupid. Observe.” Sherlock was now looking back at his photo, seemingly uninterested in Mycroft’s motives for his visit.

“I would assume that it’s for personal grooming?” Mycroft raked his eyes over the strange object, picking it up and testing out the grip. “If one holds it like so...” he put it experimentally up to his head, raking it through his hair. “It’s not bad,” he commented. “Those up top do have some good ideas. Though they are dangerous folk. Look at how sharp these points are.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at Mycroft’s last few points, looking back up at him again and choosing to focus on his earlier deduction. “Very good deduction, Mycroft,” Sherlock said, still lounging back lazily. “At first I thought that this object was used for eating, but my contact assured me that it was, indeed, for personal grooming.”

“When you say ‘your contact,’ you mean that network of our own underground street urchins that don’t really live up top and really have no clue what they’re talking about.”

“I have no reason to doubt their information,” Sherlock said.

“Except for the fact that all their information is, most likely, false,” Mycroft said, matter-of-factly, his words clipped and even.

“How would you know?”

“I have my sources, Sherlock.”

“How do you know they’re not fake?”

Mycroft gave Sherlock a tight, thin-lipped smile. “Someone has to go up top to do the shopping. I only trust the information of those who have actually been up there for the proper amount of time.”

“And yet you have to deduce that this item is used for personal grooming. If your contacts are really as good as you say, then wouldn’t they know?” Sherlock asked, challenging.

“They tell me the important things. They tell me about the murders, and the rapes, and the wars, and they tell me that we need to stay right here.”

“But it’s so _boring_ down here.”

“You could try to settle down,” Mycroft said. “Get married. Show up to your wedding.”

“She was boring. I couldn’t marry her.”

“You’re a prince. Sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do.”

“You were a prince, too. And you did do what you wanted to do. You have _Greg_.”

“Well, I had to marry him, too. It was a necessity.”

“But you _wanted_ to. Don’t you see, Mycroft? That’s the difference. I don’t want to marry that _girl_. She’s boring and plain and she _worships_ me.”

“But she _likes_ you, Sherlock, which is more than you can say about most everyone else in the universe.”

“Except for Up Above. What if there’s someone Up Above who might like me, Mycroft?”

“You can’t. It’s dangerous up there. There are diseases -- when we left, there was a _plague_ \-- ruffians, thugs, poison ivy, quicksand...”

“But you send people up there. There must be something. _Something_ good.”

“What do they have that you can’t have down here? It’s all the same.”

Sherlock suddenly leaped from his chair, planting both his hands on Mycroft’s shoulders and looking him straight in the eye. “Freedom. Have you seen the lights, Mycroft? They have...fireworks, my contact calls them fireworks, and I’ve never seen them before. I can’t deduce why they set them off, I don’t know whether it’s for war or celebration, but I want to know. There’s so much out there. I’ve done all the deductions I can down here. I want to explore.”

“There’s plenty more to explore down here.”

“I’ve read all the books. I’ve written on every corner of every wall that I’m allowed.”

“You’re not leaving, Sherlock. You’re staying right here.”

Sherlock huffed, throwing himself dramatically across the chair once again, picking up his photo as he settled into a lazy flop.

“And what, might I ask, is that?” Mycroft asked, peering at the photo.

Sherlock scoffed. “You know what it is. It’s a photo.”

“Yes, I know it’s a _photo_ , Sherlock.” Mycroft hovered over Sherlock’s chair impatiently. “But what is is a photo _of_?”

“Nothing really,” Sherlock said, dismissively. “Just a person. From Up Above. That’s all.”

“A person from Up Above? But why? They’re vicious and cruel and terrible people. There are no redeeming factors in them whatsoever.” Mycroft paused, finally deciding to peer over Sherlock’s shoulder, to look at the weathered photo in his hand. “And why this man? He’s a common soldier. An archer. He’s not even a knight.”

“They fascinate me,” Sherlock said. “And this man, he’s...interesting. It’s so boring down here.”

“Sherlock. You know why we stay here.”

“That’s right, to keep me ‘safe and sound.’ If you tell me one more time that the outside world is dangerous, I will not hesitate to poison each and every one of you.”

“You’ve already tried that. Despite what you may think, Sherlock, we’re not stupid.”

“I want to go up there. That man, he...he’s different, different from everyone down here, different than anyone I’ve ever seen, ever caught a glimpse of, Up Above.”

“They’re all the same up there. They’re vicious. They fight and they kill and they steal. The man that you saw was probably a thief.”

“He was a soldier, you said so yourself.”

“In a war. There’s war up there, Sherlock. Soldiers are dangerous.”

“Not him. He’s different. I can tell.”

Mycroft sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. “It doesn’t matter, Sherlock. You can’t go up above. There is a place for you down here. There’s nothing that you can do.”

Sherlock was silent. The photo was still clutched tightly between his fingers.

For the next few moments, there was no sound in the room at all, and then Sherlock turned away from Mycroft, saying, “Mycroft, please go away.”

“All right,” Mycroft said, walking towards the doorway. “But you get all those ideas about going Up Above out of your head, all right?”

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise and pressed his face to the inside of the chair. Mycroft rolled his eyes and left, closing the door gently behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More will come soon, I swear. I have the next chapter mostly written already -- I just need to finish it up and polish it off. It should be up within the next couple of days.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock was on another one of his trinket-gathering adventures, scrounging around in the dirt, right at the entrance to Up Above. He never wandered too far away from the entrance. He didn’t need to.

He poked and prodded at the ground, watching the dust that he unearthed billowing around him, thinking that maybe he could possibly find another photo and hoping that one of his contacts would show up soon with an actual souvenir from Up Above that would satisfy his curiosity enough that he could just go home.

It was then that Sherlock found a little hand mirror, lodged deep into the earth. He deduced that someone had buried it there, not long ago -- maybe a few days -- and pulled it out fully.

The hand mirror was silver, the handle ornate and set with something -- Sherlock’s knowledge of jewels wasn’t exactly far-reaching, since he didn’t find it all that important or significant -- that glittered red in the sunlight. The mirror’s glass was intact, but cloudy -- this mirror was old, probably an antique that had been passed down through generations, judging by its still mostly-pristine condition. This was a well-loved item, so why had it been buried here, near the entrance to the World Underneath?

Sherlock was lost in his thoughts when a voice interrupted them.

“Hey! What are you doing with my mirror?”

It was a man’s voice, coming from behind him. Sherlock turned around quickly, the mirror still clutched tightly in his grasp, and he nearly dropped it when he saw who had been speaking.

It was the soldier, _his_ soldier, the one in the photo, except this soldier wasn’t wearing the uniform of an archer. Instead, he was in the clothes that the rest of the people wore -- better clothes than a serf or a simple commoner, Sherlock noted, but not as good as someone currently in the army’s employ -- meaning that this man wasn’t a soldier anymore. For some reason, he had given that up.

And then the man raised his right arm in a desperate wave and flinched, almost imperceptibly, at something that almost seemed like pain, and then Sherlock knew that his soldier had been injured, probably shot in the shoulder by another arrow.  

When Sherlock didn’t say anything, the man came closer, stopping in front of Sherlock. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but that’s my mirror, and I really would like it back.” He held his hand out, clearly implying for Sherlock to give him the mirror.

“Where were you shot?” Sherlock asked, instead.

“I’m sorry?” The man said again, this time not apologizing, but confused. “How do you--”

“Where were you shot?” Sherlock asked again, more insistently this time.

“Just...at the Rock,” the man replied.

Sherlock had no idea where the Rock was, but he could gather that it was a common place for soldiers to be sent, given the familiar way that the man had thrown the phrase out. “I see. So you’re an archer then?”

The man looked surprised, and vaguely impressed. “How could you--” He paused. “Okay, wait. You know what? Just give me back my mirror. I’m not kidding around anymore. That mirror is very important to me.”

“Then why was it buried here in the ground?” Sherlock held the mirror back, keeping it away from the man.

“Because -- because I was trying to keep it safe while I was fighting in the war, okay? And now I’m not and I want my mirror back.” The man continued to try to reach for it.

“No. I won’t give it back.”

“Why not? That mirror is rightfully mine.”

“I found it. It was buried here, by my home, on my property. Therefore, it’s mine,” Sherlock said, stubbornly, making a face.

The man was quiet for a few moments, before he asked, “You live here?”

Sherlock nodded in the affirmative.

“You’re one of...one of Them. From the World Underneath.”

Sherlock didn’t nod again. This time, he shot the man a look, one that clearly said, _Of course, you simple man, where else would I be from? We’re right by the door._

“I didn’t think anyone lived down there. Everyone up here thinks your people are a myth.” The man sounded confused, unbelieving.

“Well, obviously, we’re not.”

“Huh.” The man looked thoughtful. “Have you ever been up here?”

Sherlock nodded. “A few times, but I’ve never wandered far.”

“Do you want to wander far?” The man asked, sounding not curious, but as if he was looking for a deal.

Sherlock’s head whipped up from where he had previously been looking at the ground. “Yes. Yes, more than anything.”

“I can take you. I’ll be your guide. You seem like an all right type of bloke, so I’ll trust you to not rob me.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment, thinking. “On what condition?” The man started to reply, when Sherlock interrupted. “Oh, I see. You lead me around, show me what it’s like Up Above, and I give you your mirror back?”

“Yes. Do we have a deal?”

Sherlock didn’t even think before replying. “Deal.”

They shook hands, faces serious. Afterwards, Sherlock stowed the mirror away in his pouch, the one that he collected his souvenirs from Up Above in. He was ecstatic. Finally, finally he would be able to go explore Up Above, and he had met his soldier in the process. Better yet, his soldier was just as interesting as he’d hoped. He’d been fascinated when Sherlock had deduced that he was a soldier and had been shot, and he had gone for a deal when Sherlock wouldn’t give him back his mirror. This would be interesting. This would be fun.

“So,” the man said, turning away from the entrance to the World Underneath and towards a city Up Above, “I still don’t know your name. I’m John. John Watson.”

Sherlock smiled. “The name is Sherlock Holmes. So good to meet you, John.”

They started off towards the city, both not really knowing a single thing about the person that they were travelling with, and neither really minding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come! Can't promise anything for sure, but Christmas break is coming up, so I'll have more time to write! So hopefully the next bit will be up soon. The only part I have written right now is the part where Mycroft hires Moriarty, which will come soon, but not next. I'm not sure what will happen next yet. Hope I'll be able to figure it out soon.
> 
> Also, I don't have a beta or a britpick. I hope you don't mind. But if you do mind, would you send along the names of a few really good betas or britpickers? That would be fantastic. Thanks, everyone!


End file.
